Hello beautiful human,
It’s okay not to be okay.
Maybe that’s the sum total, the essence, of what this Space is for. Every day I come to the desk and I let my fingers do the walking (remember that ad???) across the keys to find out what wants to be expressed. I’d love to think that my wild imaginings and my deep curiosity about the world were leading in various delightful and intriguing directions, but honestly, I think it all sort of wraps around into one basic thought:
It’s okay not to be okay. And we can be in this Space, here together, and support each other in not being particularly okay.
There’s all kinds of reasons why any of us might be feeling less than fully smoothly operational at this moment, from the very personal to the overwhelmingly global. I don’t want to take the space or the energy here to enumerate the catastrophes. You know the list as well as I do.
I want to tell you again that it’s okay if you’re not okay.
We can be not okay together.
What an interesting sentence. What would that look like, do you think, to be not okay together? What would it consist of, to share ourselves, rather than our glossy projections? What would it feel like if we could lower the facades and set down our Instagrams and not just answer “fine” or “great” or “keeping on keeping on” when someone asks us how we are?
And what do we mean if we say we’re not okay? This morning, it seems to me like more often than not, what that means is, on this particular day, week, month, we’re having trouble navigating the systems. Trouble getting through the rat maze, the matrix that’s been set up for us.
Having trouble, in other wrods, succeeding at navigating systems that are often designed to keep us from succeeding.
(You don’t know this, but as I was writing this morning I went on a bit of a rant tangent. I’ve deleted a few paragraphs for the sake of mental calm and well being on a Saturday morning.)
We’re not okay… On some level, we intuitively, instinctively know that in a healthy, thriving, functional society our health, food, shelter, medicine, should not feel insecure and shouldn’t depend on individual employment. Work and value are ideas that should not be solely defined by capitalist structures. Our communities should be designed to be resilient for the good of the people in those communities. These are just basic premises but they sound radical don’t they?
So whatever your struggle, it’s okay if you’re not okay. Somehow, I believe we’ll be okay after all, through all of it, together. None of us has to do this alone. That’s the key. That’s the secret. We need each other. And that’s okay too. More than okay. It’s the human condition.
And here’s a little extra spicy challenge for those of us who feel like we ARE okay… that we’re doing a pretty good job with our lives, like we figured it out and made the grade and scored the good job and found security... Success within this unhuman, unjust system requires a lot of luck, privilege, and collusion in others’ pain and invisibility and even I dare say our own. If we feel like we’re doing okay after all…maybe we might not want to would be? This is a Space to explore those challenging questions too. Crumble a bit. We’re all in the mix. Together.
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Your time and attention are the true gifts. Thank you. xoS
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